I was hesitant to purchase due to the price and my past unsuccessful attempts with silicone cups (low cervix), but the black Friday sales convinced me. I'm so glad I tried it out! It's easy to clean, and I don't feel it at all! I did for the first day of the first period, as I was constantly concerned about it. But it made me remember using tampons for the first time many years ago, and how hyper-aware I was of them when I first tried them out.
My worry was that it wouldn't stay in, because my cervix is low during menses, but you just slip it in behind the pubic bone and then gently press up on the whole area in there and it just nestles in and stays put. The silicon is also thin enough that if you're worried, (and you have a reachable cervix), you can just slip your finger over the silicon and feel that it's definitely covering your cervix.
Pros:
+ No leaks, just sometimes residue from when you remove it
+ No pee string
+ No hideous chafing on the way out
+ Did my best to test out the 'mess-free period sex' on my own, resounding success!
+ Fixed my instant cramping issue, so it turns out it wasn't the foreign body doing it, but the tampons specifically.
+ You get to see what's coming out of you much more clearly. Colour, consistency, amount; I think this is a real boon for gynaecological health because you can track any changes where absorbent things really leave you with much less information to go on.
Cons:
- Bit more fiddling around inside myself in a public bathroom stall, can come with some squelchy noises when doing so. Not a huge fan of that one but it still beats tampons and having to open those sanitary waste bins :X
- Can be a bit messy to empty if you don't lean correctly, or if you've got a very gooey period (don't lean until you've released the disc and pulled it forward; lean forward and to the side away from the hand holding the disc; try to keep your fingers out of the way; have some loo paper ready to go in case you get messy fingers and don't want to risk dripping, or if gooey period just sort of dangles there refusing to run out completely)
- Easy to forget about when you're tired
- Can rub past cervix on the way in and out; if you're dry or sensitive that can make you slightly queasy for a minute or two. Still way better than my tampon experience has been the past several years. A teeny dab of lube really helps if you're dry.
I'm not an especially heavy bleeder, so I can't really put its capacity to the test, but I will say that we aren't nice and open in there like an anatomical model. The silicon that makes up the disk is so thin it naturally shapes to how you are in there, which I assume alters the capacity a bit. That said, I had a day two where it was untouched for like six hours and there were no leaks and a decent amount in the disc. In general, although it doesn't get 'soggy' like a tampon would, you can still get that feeling of needing to tend to it. But I didn't need to tend to it for *six hours*!
If you're on the fence, I hope this tmi review helped you figure out whether to try it or not.